June 2014

June 30, 2014

Physicist James Franson of the University of Maryland tells us that the speed of light could be slower than what Albert Einstein told us. To refresh you memory that would be 186,282 miles or 299,792 km per second while traveling through a vacuum. If Franson’s finding is finally accepted by the scientific community, then its implications are staggering.

Franson’s finding is based a gap of 4.7 hours between the time neutrinos arrived on Earth from a supernova explosion recorded in 1987 and the light from it in the form of photons that followed. If the speed of light was universal and unchanging as Einstein so famously fixed, both photons and neutrinos should have arrived together. The observed fact that neutrinos, which are electrically neutral subatomic particles, made it 4.7 hours before light as photons should mean that the latter had slowed down over a giant distance of 168,000 from the supernova SN 1987A and us. According to Franson’s calculations 4.7 hours fits very well with the slowing down in the speed of light that would have occurred over that distance.

The slowing down is caused because photons, under a condition known as vacuum polarization, split into positrons and electrons for a short time and them rejoin again. This process causes what is known as “gravitational differential” between the two particles. When the particles rejoin there would be what is known as an “energy impact” leading to the reduction in their speed. Such a slowdown may not be noticeable over relatively shorter distances, such as from the sun to us, but if Franson’s finding is accurate they have a significant presence over galactic and interstellar distances.

Lest you think that this rather lucid explanation is a result of my easy comprehension, I want to disabuse you of that notion. I understand this only very very broadly. Don’t be misled into thinking that I get it to the extent it may seem from the explanation.

The finding could essentially mean that everything we have based on the constancy of the speed of light might have to be redone completely. Let me give you an instance you might understand more quickly in everyday sense. This would mean the light of the sun has been taking longer to reach us than we have thought. That means the sun has been “rising” and “setting” at times other than we have believed. In an infinitesimally miniscule way, it could also mean that when I see you first you may have been there a little longer than I noticed you. So if you feel ignored for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a nanosecond, please understand it is not me but the speed of light. But then comes the paradox—as far as we are concerned things become real only when we see them, irrespective of when they might have actually happened or materialized. I have written about this in this blog a couple of times earlier.

In this context, I am reminded of what was reported in September, 2011. Scientists at the Gran Sasso, one of the world’s largest physics laboratories, had then announced that neutrinos travel 5996 meters a second faster. That is 19,671.916 feet or 3.72574166 miles. That figure may not seem like a lot in and of itself but when you consider the absurdly long distances in the universe this would make an absurdly big difference. The basic point being that Einstein’s assertion that nothing can travel faster than light was coming under a serious challenge. What I wrote then bears repeating because this means that either neutrinos travel faster than light or light/photons travel slower than what have thought.

The scientists conducted the experiment to measure the speed of neutrinos by sending them from the European particle physics lab called CERN to the Gran Sasso on a 730 milometer underground journey repeatedly for three years. Some 15,000 neutrinos were used in the experiment but it is not known how many were harmed. (I had to slip that silly little crack in).

This finding is so enormously big that scientists around the world are probably looking askance at its implications, which are that everything that we know to be reality as determined by the Einsteinian physics could stand fundamentally disrupted.

Let me just cite one major mindfuck implication of this. The Guardian’s Ian Sample quotes Subir Sarkar, head of particle theory at Oxford University, as saying: "If this is proved to be true it would be a massive, massive event. It is something nobody was expecting.

"The constancy of the speed of light essentially underpins our understanding of space and time and causality, which is the fact that cause comes before effect.

"Cause cannot come after effect and that is absolutely fundamental to our construction of the physical universe. If we do not have causality, we are buggered."

Well said Professor Sarkar, we indeed are buggered if that is the case. Think of it this way. I exist without my parents doing anything to make it happen.

If the 2011 finding holds true, it could be that light indeed travels at the speed Einstein said. It is just that neutrinos travel faster.

June 28, 2014

It is rare that I write about Gujarati movie songs. That is mainly because nothing much memorable has been produced in recent decades. Gujarati movies are by and large an embarrassment in terms of production values, cinematic logic, performances and narrative structure even though the state abounds in some brilliant literature. It was only serendipity that led me to what I think is perhaps the best Gujarati movie song. At any rate, it is for me. For now. Superlatives have become fickle.

The song is from the 1970 film ‘Kanku’ directed by Kantilal Rathod. It was composed by Gujarat’s leading name Dilip Dholakia, sung by Hansa Dave and written by Venilal Purohit. I just happened to notice the lyrics under its YouTube video which begin with ‘Mune andhara bolave, Mune ajwala bolave’ and instantly started singing it. It is extraordinary how one’s brain retains information and plays it right back without any thrashing, unlike my old Toshiba laptop where the gap between a command and action is getting longer by the day.

The song captures a wistful mood and yet retains its essential melody. The way Dholakia opens and concludes it with the strains of what sounds like a combination of the violin and the mandolin gives it a lovely musical parenthesis. It is a nice little piece on either side of the song. I also like the fact that Hansa Dave’s voice does not become shrill. She was an accomplished singer and a popular name when I was growing up. The song played in a loop last evening for about an hour or so. The opening lines of the song by Purohit are evocative as is the rest of the song. Interestingly, while translating the first line, I ended up writing the following poem in English, or whatever it is that I wrote. Other than the opening line, the rest of the theme is mine. The trigger was certainly Purohit’s opening line. So here is to him, Dholakia and Dave.

June 27, 2014

The great sarod maestro and musician Ali Akbar Khan told me once this about Rahul Dev Burman, “Pancham (R D Burman) could pretty much do anything with music. He just lived music.” That was sometime in 1999, at Khan’s music academy in San Rafael, California where I had gone to interview him.

Khan was visibly happy to hear Burman’s name and, in fact, quickly hummed the great composer’s first song “Ghar aya ghir aayi” from the 1961 film ‘Chhote Nawab’ sung brilliantly by Lata Mangeshkar. Khan had a special fondness for Burman because as a child in the 1940s the latter learned the sarod under him. “He did not want to make a career as a Sarod player but strengthen his foundation as a music composer,” Khan told me. Being a son the illustrious Sachin Dev Burman and himself a preternaturally talented musician, Pancham had his career laid out for him. People are surprised when they realize that he would have been 75 today had he lived past 1994 when he died at 55. At some level Burman seems like a figure from another era but at another level he is easily the most current of all Hindi cinema music composers.

I had the good fortune to spend a couple of hours with Burman at his apartment in the suburb of Khar in Mumbai in 1994, barely a few months before he died. I had gone to interview him. I vividly remember entering his music room whose floor was covered with wall-to-wall mattresses in spotless white sheets with half a dozen bolsters, also in white covers thrown about casually. Burman was sitting cross-legged and playing his harmonium. He was singing/humming something he had just composed. By the time I met him, he was well past his prime and made it a point to tell me that. “I have at least 1000 compositions sitting with me as of now,” he told me, “But no one wants them.”

Burman was then in the midst of composing for his last film ‘1942: A Love Story’ directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The songs from the movie became widely popular. He asked me to accompany him for a recording of one of the songs at a studio in Mahalaxmi. I remember Burman, lyricist Javed Akhtar and I took a cab from Khar to Mahalaxmi. Once at the studio, he told me that he had unabashedly copied “Baba”—his great composer father Sachin Dev Burman—in some of that film’s music. In particular, he pointed out that interlude from the song ‘Jane who kaise log’ from the 1957 classic ‘Pyasa.’ “If you pay attention, you would feel as if your are listening to Baba’s composition,” Burman said.

That particular day Burman was recording a singer called Shivaji Chattopadhyaya for the song ‘Yeh safar bahut hai kathin magar na udas ho mere humsafar’. Being a Bengali speaker he had trouble with some of the pronunciations which Akhtar, a stickler for such details, kept correcting. It took some effort for Chattopadhyaya to nail it. I could see the Burman was getting restless and at one point said as long the singer sang it right they might have to compromise on his pronunciation.

In my book, Burman has always been one of the five greatest composers of Hindi cinema in this order—S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman, S.D. Burman, R.D. Burman and the fifth position changes among the others. That may seem like a controversial thing to say but we have to judge a Hindi cinema music composer, just as we have to do a cinema lyricist, by employing many varied yardsticks. The father and son have been unsurpassable from that standpoint.

June 26, 2014

Childhood friend Paresh Pandya stirred up a mélange of memories by uploading this photograph on his Facebook update. This champa tree (Plumeria ) is almost as old as I am, which is old. The house partially hidden behind it is where I spent my childhood in the early 1970s. The house in whose yard the tree stands, bearing number 16, is where Paresh lives today and has lived there for over 45 years.

When we were growing up—my brother Manoj, friends Paresh and Jayendra—this champa tree was perhaps the only reassuring sight in the dusty and hazy hotness that was Ahmedabad. It was, of course, much smaller then like us but big enough to withstand us climbing its trunk.

I remember a barbed wire fence separated Paresh’s house and ours, Number 17. When I say ours, it is misleading because we did not own it. We merely rented it. When the landlord, Prabhudasbhai came to collect the rent every month a measure of anxiety pervaded to be replaced gradually by the heady fragrance of the champa flowers. The contrast between humans and nature used to strike me even as a boy—Prabhudasbhai charged us a rent to stay in his house but Nature did not. In fact, Nature even threw in free fragrances, the predominant one for us being from this champa tree.

We were careful enough not to pluck flowers that were still attached to the tree. We picked those that had fallen to the ground, having served the singular purpose of luring sphinx moths for pollination. I found out about the sphinx moths this morning and how the champa flowers, which have no nectar, act as a fragrance trap for pollination. But I digress. I remember gently kicking the trunk occasionally so that a couple of flowers would drop to the ground. I used to stick one behind my ear flap to savor its fragrance.

It is so heartening to see that the champa tree, not only robustly alive still, but even flourishing as evident in lush green leaves and white and yellow flowers. The champa trunk and branches excrete sticky white milk-like substance when cut. Even the stem of the leaves, when broken, exude that. I can feel that on my fingers even now as can I the champa flower’s fragrance. The champa fragrance is widely used in scents and perfumes. When I was growing up that fragrance was supposed to have a hint of the lascivious as in a woman who could seduce unsuspecting teenagers by merely wearing it.

Trees have always been my weakness. This champa tree is no exception. Here is to Paresh, Jayendra and Manoj and memories strewn over my mindscape like the pebbles on the unpaved street and front yard we grew up on.

June 25, 2014

We live in a time when tools aiding petty forms of narcissism abound. Selfies facilitated by camera phones or phone cameras are a great example. However, it strikes me that if there is one selfie which is perhaps most well-deserved, it is the one above of Mars rover Curiosity’s.

Yesterday, Curiosity completed its first Martian year on the planet. A Martian year is 687 Erath days. It takes Mars those many days to complete one orbit of the sun. In that one Martian year, Curiosity has been remarkably successful in meeting its goal. As Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, deputy project scientist on the Curiosity mission, explains, the rover’s goal in that time was to find a “habitable environment” which it did. “We found a lakebed on Mars that we drilled into and found the ingredients and conditions that could have supported microbial life, if life ever was on Mars,” Dr. Vasavada says in a NASA video.

As achievements that justify taking a selfie and propagating it go, this one is eminent.

If I were a Martian being who wondered whether I am alone in the universe, that question would have been answered in the negative so firmly so many times because of the various probes which have landed there. It would have been particularly awesome (now that is a correct use of the word awesome) to find a probe like Curiosity digging holes on my planet’s surface. As a representative of the human civilization, Curiosity is a very impressive probe. It is the ChemCam and the MastCam , the cameras that together look like the head of the rover, make it appear like a possibly live creature.

In 687 Earth days the rover has driven about eight kilometers which may seem terribly small. However, when you consider that its mission is to do serious science through rock and soil samples, you understand the deliberate pace of its movement. In any case, it already traveled 204 million kilometers (127 million miles), the distance between us and Mars at the time of the launch, to get where it had to be. It is not in a pointless NASCAR race.

I don’t know about you but I remain captivated by the Curiosity mission.

June 24, 2014

The conventional scholarly wisdom is to suggest that human thought has grown exponentially in sophistication over millennia. The implication of this wisdom is that what a philosopher or a scholar or a scientist conceived of and wrote about, say for instance, 1500 years ago may be considered brilliant for its time but may be archaic and even anachronistic now.

While that could be true of some ideas, there are many ideas dating back millennia whose sophistication is extraordinary in any age. In fact, I would argue that there could well be some decline in the realm of living a purely cerebral life over the millennia.

Taking off a bit on yesterday’s post and my reference to figures such as Kumarila Bhatta and Dharmakirti, I remain captivated by what they propounded. For the purposes of today’s post, I would focus on Dharmakirti.

It is best to extensively quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s section about Dharmakirti:

Dharmakīrti has two arguments for the momentariness (kṣaṇikatva) of all that exists, one quite obscure and unconvincing, which he inherited from previous writers like Vasubandhu (5 century C.E.), and the other more promising.[14] The first argument, which nowadays is commonly known as the vināśitvānumāna, or “the inference of things perishing [spontaneously],” turns on the long-attested Buddhist idea that perishing must be of the intrinsic nature of any object. Perishing due to its intrinsic nature, something will always perish as soon it exists.[15] The point is that such moment by moment destruction is spontaneous (ākasmika) and is the uncaused real nature of things, because it cannot be an effect of any cause. The effect of such a cause, i.e., the absence of the entity, would have to be a type of non-being (abhāva), and non-being is unreal.

A key underlying principle of the vināśitvānumāna is that negative facts, such as absences, are not part of the ultimate furniture of the world, but are just fictional conceptual constructions, as they are devoid of causal powers. Equally, a fiction lacking causal powers is not the effect of something else. While it is obviously impossible to deny that hammers smash pots, the absence (abhāva) of the pot, i.e., the non-existent pot, is not an effect, just as other non-existent things (abhāva), like horns of rabbits, are not effects of anything either. Hammers and the like are thus not actually causes of the pot's absence but of it turning into potsherds. That idea is perhaps defensible, in that arguably the mere absence of something—a purely negative fact—might be less real and less efficacious than the presence of other things.[16] Nonetheless, the rest of the argument looks to consist in a number of non-sequiturs going from that difference in efficacy and reality between absences and presences to the idea that perishing is somehow the real nature of things, that it must be intrinsic to them, and that therefore things must perish spontaneously moment after moment. Let's grant the Buddhist view that the perishing of x is the real property of changing into a new thing, and not just x becoming absent. If it is accepted that hammer blows dochange pots into potsherds, then why couldn't someone skeptical about the Buddhist's arguments just take that as the model of how things perish when they do?

There is, fortunately, a much better argument for intrinsic momentariness than the problematicvināśitvānumāna. This argument is known as “the inference [of things' momentariness] from the [mere] fact of [them] existing” (sattvānumāna), and seems to be largely Dharmakīrti's own invention, first developed in the second chapter of his Pramāṇaviniścaya. If anything exists and is a specific thing rather than another, it is because of its causal efficacy (arthakriyā), or powers to produce such and such effects. Thus, the sattvānumāna reasoning, concisely formulated, is that things are impermanent, i.e., are new things moment after moment, because they are always causally efficient in some way. (Although not stated, it seems to be presupposed that real thingsare every moment causing some or another different effect. The differences between effects would be subtle ones that often escape our perception.) The key step in the argument is that nothing causes new effects while itself remaining the same. Dharmakīrti, in the opening passages of the Vādanyāya, argues that if something were permanent (nitya), it would be causally inert as it would neither produce its effects all at once (yaugapadyena) nor serially (kramena). Of course, it is the second hypothesis that is the most attractive possibility for an espouser of permanently enduring things: he would hold that a permanent unchanging cause would produce a series of different effects, not because the cause changes in any way, but simply because of the presence of new and different surrounding circumstances.

On the face of it, all this may may be a set of recondite philosophical ideas but if you stay with them for a length of time, they would begin to make sense. Take my word for it.

In my Facebook update yesterday I said referring this while referring to Dharmakiriti” “The idea that things that are permanent are "causally inert", as advocated by Dharmakirti in the 6th or 7th century CE is extraordinary in any age.”

To which my childhood friend and fellow nerd responded, “I don't understand what is meant by "causally inert", but is anything in this universe permanent?”

I responded saying, “You raise a valid question but Dharmakiriti's point is not that the universe is permanent--it is precisely to the contrary--his point is that if there was something permanent at all, it would not cause any effect or change because of its inherent permanence.”

To think that over 1400 years after his time Dharmakirti can get two friends living 10,000 miles apart engage in a serious discussion about his ideas is in itself remarkable.

June 23, 2014

Getting trapped and lost in the esoteric is an old habit of mine. After writing about spacetime superfluid the other day and serendipitously ending with Kumarila Bhatta I have been captivated by two pieces in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. One relates to Bhatta, a seventh century Indian philosopher described as one of the most influential thinkers of Indian philosophy, and the other relates to Dhramakirti, a likely sixth or possibly seventh century scholar of Indian Buddhism.

Stanford does a remarkable job of presenting these two astoundingly original minds going as far back as 13 to 14 centuries. There is a lot that Stanford offers on these two extraordinary figures but I was struck by the following two passages. The first is about Bhatta and the second about Dharmakirti.

Bhatta:

The locus classicus for Kumārila's argument here is verse 47 of the codanā sūtra chapter of theŚlokavārttika: “It should be understood that all pramāṇas’ being pramāṇas obtains intrinsically; for a capacity not already existing by itself (svataḥ) cannot be produced by anything else.”

The argument Kumārila concisely expresses here in verse form is straightforward but compelling: if it is thought that any cognition finally counts as a reliable doxastic practice only insofar as it can be demonstrated to be such (for example, by appeal to a subsequent cognition of the causes of the initial one), infinite regress ensues; for the subsequent, justifying cognition would, as itself a cognition, similarly require justification, and so on.

Dharmakirti:

It [i.e., the universal] does not come there [from somewhere else], it was not there already, nor is it produced subsequently, nor does it have any parts. [And even when in other places] it does not leave the previous locus. Oh my! It's just one disaster after another. (Pramāṇavārttika I.152)[7]

No doubt the fundamental intuition in Buddhist nominalism, just as in other nominalisms, is that universals are occult pseudo-entities that should not be taken seriously by a responsible thinker concerned with ontology. As the above quotation from Pramāṇavārttika shows, Dharmakīrti lists a series of anomalies: they don't come from anywhere, they are partless, aren't produced, are in several places at one time, aren't seen, wouldn't seem to have any discernible function, and so and so on. Such bogusness of pseudo-entities becomes a recurrent theme in Buddhist Epistemology. A later Indian Buddhist writer, Paṇḍit Aśoka, inspired by Dharmakīrti and Dignāga, ridiculed real universals as follows in his Sāmānyadūṣaṇa (“Refutation of Universals”).

It is not my case that I understand Bhatta and his mimamsa and the philosophical profundity that it represents. Nor is it my case that I comprehend fully Dharmakirti and Buddhist nominalism. However, I can reach fairly intelligible and intelligent inferences from what is being proposed. The idea that all this was going on 13/14 centuries ago is also compelling for me, although once you are talking about such deep concepts, the passage of time is immaterial.

June 22, 2014

Remembering random Hindi movie songs without any provocation has become such a routine part of my life that I have stopped being amused by it. It is just one of those things that happens. The latest in this series is this song from the 1977 Dev Anand-Zeenat Aman film ‘Kalabaaz.’ The song was composed by Kalyanji Anandji. “Arey ruthey hai to maan jayege’ (If she is upset, she will be mollified) playing unprompted in my mind yesterday. A YouTube search inevitably led me to its video. I had a vague recollection that it featured Dev Anand. It does indeed feature him and how?!

I would have loved to be part of the production meeting for this song, especially when Anand and the film’s director Ashok Roy talked about what situation appropriate clothes the former should wear. Here is my imaginary exchange between Anand (DA) and Roy (AR).*

Ashok being a Hindi movie director is completely unfazed by this strange suggestion. The line producer , also a veteran of Hindi movies, mumbles under his breath, “अरे गनीमत है गैंडे का पिल्ला नहीं माँगाI (Grateful, they are not asking for a baby rhino).

AR: Devsaab, In the song you are riding this baby elephant and chasing madam (Zeenat Aman). You are wooing her क्यूंकि वो रूठी हुईं हैंI गाने के बोल यही है “रूठे हैं तो मान जायेंगे”I (Because she is upset. The lyrics also say “If she is upset, she will be mollified”.

DA: I like it Ashooook, I like it. Now what about clothes? What am I wearing?”

Before Ashok could answer Anand answers his own question: ऐसा करते हैं (Let’s do this) I will wear a parrot green overalls, pinkish red sweater and black flappy collared shirt. जब हवा चलेगी और कोलर ऊपर नीचे होगा सेक्सी लगेगा I (When the breeze blows and the collar flaps up and down, it would look sexy).

With some trepidation the director ventures, “But sir, we are in Bombay and at Fountain. Are you sure you want to wear dungarees and sweater? You are also going to ride the baby elephant. गर्मी बहुत होगी देव साबI” (It will be very hot)

DA: "करेंगे करेंगे, मोशन पिक्चर के लिए वोह भी करेंगे I ज़ीनत को क्या पेहेनायेंगे? (Will do it for the sake of motion picture. What are we making Zeenat wear?”

June 21, 2014

Reading about the latest theory that spacetime may well be some sort of a superfluid makes me wonder whether we are wasting time trying to unify the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. General relativity, as many of you would know, relates to how massive structures in the universe are governed, while quantum mechanics is about how the infinitesimally small is governed. These two distinct theories work perfectly on their own and independent of each other but things become weird when you apply one to the other. Relativity does not work at the quantum level and quantum mechanics does not work at the large structural level. That has been infuriating the scientific community for decades because it is the default temperament of scientists to look for theories that explain everything. It is as noble a goal as one can possibly have in science. I am not sure if it is a necessary goal.

Nevertheless, it is fascinating to see what is being proposed by Stefano Liberati of the International School for Advanced Studies and Luca Maccione of Ludwig Maximilian University. Their basic contention is that spacetime is a liquid. It is as if the universe is inside one gigantic amniotic sac containing a placenta-like superfluid. I am still trying to square this new idea with the very old idea of luminiferous aether as the medium that carries light across the universe. When I figure out I will let you know.

For now, the two scientists have been studying high-energy photons from the Crab Nebula to determine whether photons slow down traveling within this fluid. The distance between the Crab Nebula and Earth, 6,500 light years, is long enough for the photons traveling from there to us to slow down. “We show the spectrum would be severely affected by this energy loss, even if it’s a very tiny effect, because it travels for so long,” Liberati has been quoted by Clara Moskowitz of Nature as saying. Since they do not seem to be slowing down, they must be traveling through some kind of a superfluid that causes next to no dissipation. Think of this as a tsunami of x-ray and gamma rays rising from the nebula and by the time it reaches our earthly shores it should lose a lot of its force at that distance. Moskowitz does a fine job of explaining this new theory here.

My larger point, which I started with, is about the need to unify the two fundamental theories. Must we unify them? Flowing from that question is another one—must we comprehend everything? I ask because there does not seem to be a logical end of comprehension at the scale of the universe. Just as you think you have achieved an epic scientific closure—and ended physics in a way—an even greater befuddlement occurs. This approach of mine explains why I am not a scientist but just an ordinary journalist pretending to get some measure of what the deal with the universe is. One expression that I have frequently heard while reading up physics since my teenage is “emergent” properties. Moskowitz too writes about it. Emergent properties are properties or behaviors in the universe that emerge as a result of or interactions between discrete building blocks of anything. As humans we can only perceive emergent properties unless we choose to go to extraordinarily small levels.

I am reminded of the Buddhist idea of kshanika or moments. It holds that the universe is momentary and does not exist between moments. These discrete moments perhaps create emergent properties that we call the universe. Kumarila Bhatta, a great Hindu philosopher circa 660 CE, was so exercised by this Buddhist assertion to ask, "If the universe does not exist between moments, then in which of these moments does it exist?" Not that I support one over the other but somehow the Buddhist idea of momentariness feels more in tune with the way I think. I could be thinking wrong, of course, but that is the way I currently think. But then Bhatta’s question is equally valid. In short, everything is valid and yet nothing is. Ergo, there is no need to unify the theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics. Without realizing it, I have internalized the Indian idea—or more specifically the Mahabharat’s idea—of situational logic that works in and is limited to particular situations as opposed to overarching logic that is supposed to work in all situations. (Wow! I can spin some serious non-sense).